By all accounts, I’m relatively new to the Monster Hunter universe. For a long time, I steered clear of the game because it was confined to handheld consoles I wasn’t fond of – and quite honestly, the gameplay performance seemed less than stellar.
It was Monster Hunter: World that finally drew me in, igniting a passion for the franchise that has only grown since. With over two dozen hours under my belt in Wilds as I pen this, I’ve focused on completing the main story before diving into the sidequests. Unfortunately, this decision led to quite the disappointment.
Campaigns in Monster Hunter games aren’t exactly celebrated for their storytelling prowess or innovative plots. Their main purpose is to ease players into the myriad of systems and mechanics they’ll be engaging with for the next 100-plus hours. These campaigns act as an introductory walkthrough to the game’s diverse array of creatures.
The general structure follows a familiar formula: your team is tasked with tracking down a mysterious monster whose presence disrupts the world around you. Along the way, your pursuit is hindered by various other beasts until you eventually uncover what’s behind the initial threat. Finally, you face the formidable creature, wrapping up the campaign and unlocking the High Rank, where the real Monster Hunter experience begins.
In broad terms, both Wilds and World’s campaigns fit this mold. However, the details differ significantly, and it’s these nuances that determine whether a campaign feels like an engaging journey or falls flat.
World’s campaign stood out because of its central plot. Zorah Magdaros was not only a new monster, but its massive size required an entire community to even slow it down. This colossal creature allowed for battles with multiple monsters on its back without feeling cramped.
For the development team, this was an ambitious project, an attempt to introduce a unique kind of encounter to the Monster Hunter lineup. It wasn’t universally loved, largely because engaging with Zorah Magdaros meant constructing complicated defenses, manning cannons, and essentially participating in activities outside of the typical Monster Hunter experience.
Personally, I was a fan of these encounters precisely because they offered something different. Zorah’s segments broke the monotony of back-to-back monster battles and used its journey to move the story forward.
Each time Zorah progressed to a new area, that region became available for exploration, allowing players to observe firsthand the ecological impact it had. The game deliberately kept the purpose of Zorah’s migration under wraps until almost the end, injecting the story with a sense of urgency and an intriguing mystery to unravel.
In contrast, Wilds’ campaign lacks the same driving force. The flagship monster, Arkveld, appears intermittently, doing things the characters can’t quite explain before disappearing again. It’s not the final adversary either; that title goes to a previously unknown giant, introduced just one mission before its battle.
This section of the game doesn’t convey bands of different people uniting against a shared threat. Some monster debuts feel as though Capcom struggled to seamlessly incorporate them, resorting to awkwardly placing them into missions with no fitting narrative justification.
There’s an underlying hint that there was once a more cohesive tie between the characters’ camps, hinted at in NPC dialogues and cutscene lines that suggest something significant, yet it’s never fully revealed.
Even the subplot of an ancient civilization equipped with weather-control technology – ultimately leading to their downfall – becomes anticlimactic, feeling more like sporadic lore rather than an impactful narrative element.
The campaign of Wilds mirrors some of the broader issues present in the main game. By smoothing over unique elements to enhance accessibility, it loses some of the series’ charm. But I’m uncertain if these were the aspects that needed tweaking.
As the game’s successes and stumbles come to light, the Wilds campaign might fade from memory, but I can’t help but ponder what a true sequel to World’s campaign would entail.
